1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a deep brain stimulation (DBS) device using a wireless power transmission mechanism, and more particularly, to a DBS device which wirelessly receives microwaves from a power transmission antenna installed at a hat put on a patient, transforms the microwaves into power, and drives electrodes implanted into a brain of the patient using the power, so as to correct abnormal motor and sensory functions using power which is wirelessly transmitted from an outside into the patient.
2. Background Art
Modern people are exposed to accidents or diseases and thus lose their own functions or motors due to complexity of a modern society. There are limits to cures for such patients only through medical science. Medical and biological engineering in which an engineering field is grafted into a medical field has been developed in order to overcome the above-described limits. Thus, many areas of a health management system have been changed.
For example, cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators have saved lives of hundreds of people and cured heart diseases. Also, surgeons implant deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices into brains of patients to control abnormal brain functions of the patients using techniques of cardiac pacemakers.
Abnormal physical actions or mental disorders derive from abnormal functions of brains such as Parkinson's disease or an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Parkinson's disease is a chronic degenerative disease whose main symptoms are shivering of hands and feet, slow actions, and hardening of muscles.
Neurosurgeons use DBS devices to cure health problems such as Parkinson's disease, OCD, and hypochondria. A curing method using a DBS device is a surgical method for curing an OCD and is effective in curing Parkinson's disease. This curing method requires a process of implanting an electrode, which inhibits or stimulates a predetermined part of a cerebral nerve, into a deep part of a brain in order to normalize a function of the brain of a patient.
Operations using DBS devices have been performed since Alim-Louis Benabid in the Grenoble University Hospital of France reported on 80 or more Parkinson's disease patients in 1993. Thus, about thirty thousand similar operations have been very successfully performed throughout the world. Such a DBS device applies current pulses to a cerebral nerve through electrodes, which are implanted into an accurate position of the cerebral nerve, in order to stop shivering, which is a main symptom of a disease, and relax stooped muscles. DBS devices contribute to controls of extant diseases. However, when a DBS device uses an electric wire in a human body to supply power, transmit data, and program software, a plurality of problems occur.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional DBS device which is implanted into a human body. Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional DBS device includes an electrode needle 146 and a power supply unit 160. The electrode needle 146 is implanted into a cerebral nerve to provide an electric stimulation to the cerebral nerve so as to restore an abnormal function of a brain. The power supply unit 160 is connected to the electrode needle 146 through an electric wire 150 to supply power to the electrode needle 146.
The conventional DBS device having the above-described structure sews the power supply unit 160 having a power source such as a battery into abdomen or thorax to be turned on or off by remote control using a skin. Thus, the DBS device is clinically simply used. However, the DBS device provides hard inconvenience to a patient. Also, if the electric wire 550 installed underneath the skin of the patient short-circuits or power of the battery installed in the abdomen or thorax is consumed, a surgical operation is repeatedly performed to replace or repair a corresponding part.